Ode to Time

Oh Time,
It is not that you are an enemy
But that we have rejected you,
Refused to work within your confines
Of growth and decay,
Life and death—
Parameters that even you cannot alter.
We have been wedded to you,
But we have not been sensible;
We have insisted that you change,
You, who cannot change.
We ourselves should have changed,
As we secretly know we could have done,
Since there is no divorcing you:
It is you who divorce us all in the end,
Leaving for your future consorts
Unimaginable marvels
To be relished in our absence,
The absence even of our memory.
Perhaps they will accept you as you are.
Otherwise, that wondrous future
Will be just like today:
Love and loss,
Fear and loathing,
Happy face, sad face.

Our naked ancestors hunted shells along the seashore
In the cold drizzle,
Longing for the warmth of evening fire,
Where they huddled together,
Before slipping into sublime sleep,
Just like we do,
But with less drama,
For they were more at peace with you,
Oh Time.

Come, let us begin again!
No, we are too old now.
Find somebody new,
Oh Time.

I Said Goodbye to God

I said goodbye to God one day
Because I couldn’t see
Why one who seemed so full of words
Would never talk with me.
“Well, He knows where I am,” I mused,
“And if there comes a day
He’ll condescend to seek me out,
I can’t be far away.”

I said goodbye to God because
I’d finally concluded
That those who claimed to teach His ways
Were guileful or deluded:
What use is praying to a God
Who hides behind a curtain?
And how do you grow close to one
Whose feelings are uncertain?

I said goodbye to God without
Resentment in my heart;
I hadn’t any notion of
How long we’d be apart.
It seemed that there was just too much
About Him left to know;
I said goodbye to God and yet
I thought someday He’d show.

I said goodbye to God and now
My words I shall not mince:
I said goodbye to God and, no,
I haven’t heard back since.
I stroll along my merry road
And seldomly look back:
I said goodbye to God and that’s
One less load on my back.

Dust to Dust

Dust!
We have to keep on dusting,
So that we can respect ourselves.
Even if you have someone to dust for you,
Keep dusting,
Because, ultimately,
It’s better to be a duster
Than to employ one.
The rich do not dust,
And look how they usually turn out!

During the Second World War,
British soldiers,
Prisoners of the Japanese,
Were compelled by their own officers
To shave every morning,
Regardless,
Because one cannot stop dusting;
One cannot take that risk,
Not after being stripped
Of everything else.
From dust you come,
To dust you return,
But, in the meantime,
Dust.

Dust as free men and women.
Put on the music and dust.
Dusting is noble: ask your grandmother!
Dusting is never a waste of time;
Only the thought that it's a waste of time
Is a waste of time.
Dust briskly as if brushing off a hero’s statue;
Dust gently as if caressing a lover;
Dust reverently.
Chop wood,
Fetch water,
Dust.
The world is a big, jolly snow globe
Filled with dust.
The last thing you need
Is a vacuum cleaner
Because dust is the stuff of life:
Once you are separated from that,
What might become of you?

We Will Scatter Your Ashes on the Lake Today

We will scatter your ashes on the lake today,
When the sun shines full upon it;
Early,
Like you always rose early.
We will remember you,
And this remembrance
Will mark the beginning of our forgetting.

We will scatter your ashes with heavy hearts,
Because these ashes are you,
And we are at fault.
We will be silent,
At least we would be
If we could,
But we never can and that’s one of the reasons why ...

We will scatter your ashes in your favorite place,
Though these ashes are not you
And you will not see it.
If you were here,
You would only make sarcastic remarks,
As would be your right;
But you are not here,
Not now.

We will scatter your ashes in the midst of resentment,
All thinking the others more to blame,
Only agreed upon one thing:
That it wasn’t you.
We tried to love you,
But we didn’t know how. Old story.
Too late.

We will scatter your ashes with no sense of joy,
Though your life was so well-lived.
You were an example;
We are ashamed.
There is no redemption in tragedy:
Catharsis is not redemption.

We will scatter your ashes with barely a word,
For you have broken the bond that should have united us,
And by you have broken, I mean we have broken.
We would bow before you,
But there is no you,
And we would only be embarrassed in front of one another.

We will scatter your ashes sadly, shamefully,
Yet unrepentantly,
Because we do not learn from experience:
Not us!
But you know that already.
No, knew it.
You don’t even know that anymore.


This poem was a response to Visual Verse's monthly challenge to write a poem in one hour inspired by a picture provided.

Some More of My Old Limericks

An obsessive young lady named Fong
Would constantly bang on a gong;
Said her doctor, “I find
You’ve an unbalanced mind—
You should strive for more ding and less dong.”


In the village of Jingamafloo,
They don’t look at the world like we do:
When a gentleman dies
His dear wife shouts, “Surprise!
Now we’ll all get a little more stew.”


How to spell the potato has tried
Many minds, sometimes mine, I’ll confide.
Though it might have an eye,
There’s no E – don’t ask why!
Not until it’s been baked, boiled or fried.


If a thought that’s been thought has been “thunk”
Have those dreams that we’ve sought all been “sunk”?
Should “we ought” be “we unk”?
Can what’s fought be what’s “funk”?
And those stocks that we bought, were they “bunk”?


There once was a yogi who said,
“I can see I should never have wed:
Our carnal relations
Only cause lamentations—
I suspect it’s the nails in the bed.”


Assisting a suicide’s fate
Is a practice all faiths seem to hate:
Is God, the Creator,
Some prickly Head Waiter,
Who freaks if you send back your plate?

The Gods Who We Are

Build an altar
To your wiser self;
Light incense and candles;
Await the presence
That comes only in stillness,
The presence that communes with you,
Is you.
Only you,
Who are so miniscule,
Yet infinite.

Our ancestors knelt before Osiris
And they received blessings.
Osiris, Apollo, Mary, Allah
Brahman, Buddah,
That flamboyant revivalist the Sun
And his soul sister the Moon—
All only you,
You and me.

However, like wild animals,
The gods who we are will not come
If they know that we are here.
So, silence first and foremost.
Fold into yourself,
That you might unfold from yourself,
Like the numbers
In an origami finger game:
Disappear so that you might reappear.
Still to active and back to still
Is the way of life and thought.
Be still all hearts.

Wait upon yourself,
At the edge of the night,
Reverently:
Hushed like a lamb,
Primed like a lion.
You are the only one who can receive the revelation,
And you are the only one who can give it.

The Dandelions

The dandelions are laughing in the grass,
But soon I’ll be along to mow them down.
I bend to ape the customs of my class,
And such displays aren’t welcome in this town.
We’ve deemed that all our lawns must look alike,
Bereft of giddy-headed yellow charms;
The place for flowering things is on a hike,
With rippling streams and wholesome, oblong farms.
To stop and stare there is a place and time,
But don’t pretend it might be here and now:
The workweek does not yield to the sublime;
The lapwing’s nest is nothing to the plough.
No, we’re resolved to hasten, strain and strive,
To squeeze on through like earthworms, not to thrive.

Nothing to Say

Humanity,
Shuffling through the street,
Watching TV,
Driving cars,
All with nothing to say,
And yet so quiet about it,
As if they don’t even see it as a problem,
The “despair of not being in despair."

No, if you have nothing to say,
That’s a stage-four symptom of something deadly;
You should be crying for help.
Shout it from the rooftops:
"I have nothing to say,
Oh, sweet Jesus, I have nothing to say.”
If you have nothing to say,
I want to hear you say it.
We all need to hear it.

Scribble it on the wall beneath the railroad track,
Wear it on a tee shirt,
Or flash it to someone with a knowing look—
Even a glare would do.
Form secret societies,
And murmur about it.
Take that first step.

Let all the people who have nothing to say
Join together
And march on Washington:
“We have nothing to say,
Goddamnit,
And we’re gonna say it!”

Nothing to say is reason to scream.
Scream until the bubble explodes:
Who knows what mystery might burst forth?
Nothing to say—
Bang!

Creatio ex nihilo.

The stars have nothing to say.
Life has nothing to say.
Lovers have nothing to say.

There is nothing to say,
But that’s no excuse
For going about it in completely the wrong way!
From the silence of unconsciousness
We must rescue the silence of awareness.

I’m Looking for a Mind at Work

I’m looking for a mind at work,
Compassionate and giving,
A consciousness that seeks the good
Of every creature living.
I’m looking for a sense of care,
A bias for protection,
But when I dare to stop and stare,
I just see blind selection:
The cuckoo raids another nest,
And Smokey grabs a rabbit,
While soccer moms strike squirrels down,
Just out of callous habit.

I’m looking for a higher love,
But only find a scheme;
An algorithmic strategy,
A program, not a dream.
I’m looking for a miracle,
If only on occasion,
But Nature’s brutal wheel just turns,
Quite heedless of dissuasion.
The suffering of innocents—
A cliché for good reason,
For in all weathers, hot or cold,
They’re never out of season.

I’m looking for a mind at work,
And likewise so are you;
I just can’t find a trace of one,
I know that irks you too;
For though we’re told the road is long,
And that the gate is narrow,
We don’t see why the rules can’t bend
To sometimes save a sparrow.
No, mysticism never helped
Us see behind closed doors:
And yet there is a mind at work,
The one that’s mine and yours.

More of My Old Limericks

I've no fear of the mean streets of Skokie —
I'm adept at concealed karaoke:
If I'm under attack,
There's a switch that I whack —
Then it blares out a loud “Hokey Pokey".


Is Algebra fruitless endeavor?
It seems they’ve been trying for ever
To find x, y, and z
And it’s quite clear to me:
If they’ve not found them yet then they'll never.


There once was a baby named Sam
Who would never be good for his mam:
His screams were so loud
That he’d draw a small crowd,
Then he’d sell bootlegged booze from his pram.


As for sex education, I’ve wondered
If our school system’s totally blundered,
For the textbooks these days
Just teach two or three ways—
While Norwegians learn more than five hundred.


There once was a man of Nepal
Who declared, "I have seen through it all.
I shall sit on my bum
And not even chew gum
And shall think and do nothing at all."


One’s stance on the flinging of feces
Is likely to hinge on one’s species,
The strength of one’s arm,
One’s urge to do harm,
And whether one rents, owns or leases.

Blessed Lives

We lead blessed lives,
Safe lives,
Never facing combat,
The slashing of iron against bone;
Never realizing
How resolutely the laws of physics
Stand to attention,
Ready to pump out the blood.

We go on gut instinct,
Ignorant of how quickly it all falls apart,
Of how readily we start putting people on trains—
Anything to be of help.
We only see the surface;
Living is not really living.

We must look unblinkingly into the abyss:
We must steel ourselves,
So that we can dare to think and feel.
A little suffering keeps despair at bay,
Enabling everything
Beautiful and good,
Virtuous and sound,
To come into being
And endure.
We must be armored,
Prepared to fight:
Only the hard can be soft,
And we must be soft
At any cost.

In Praise of Income Tax

I love the income tax,
I’m very glad to pay it;
It makes the world a better place.
I’m not afraid to say it.
To spread some of the wealth around
Enhances any nation,
If, like all acts of virtue,
It’s performed in moderation.

Sing praises to the income tax,
Oh people near and far:
The more you have to pay of it,
The better off you are.
Instead of revolution,
With bloodshed, ruin and strife,
How sweet it is to write a check
And get on with your life.

Not everybody has quick brains,
Clear vision or bold pluck,
Robustness, or resilience,
Or, most of all, good luck.
So, be a hero, not a jerk,
Should you be blessed with stacks:
Please act as if you’re all grown up
And gladly pay your tax.